Your risk of getting a serious heart problem doubles if you spend more than four hours a day watching TV or playing computer games.
If you spend that much time in front of a screen you are extremely unlikely to be doing enough exercise to counteract the bad effects of couch potato-dom.
This is the headline finding of an Anglo- …

cause of death

"People who spend excessive amounts of time in front of a screen - primarily watching TV - are more likely to die of any cause and suffer heart-related problems.

more likely to die of any cause? So someone who spends all day watching TV is more like to be killed in an avalanche whilst skiing than anyone else? Amazing bit of research that, probably the avalanche will be a result of the heart disease....

Jesus wept! Call out the guard!

Seriously, "Sitting on yer arse all day doing next to no physical movements will lead you to being a fat, lazy bastard who will die of something fat, lazy bastards die off."

Well bugger me with a fish fork!

The HR dept where I am nags us at least once every 6 months about sitting on our arses at the screens all day, telling us to re-focus every 5 mins and get off our backsides once an hour for 5 minutes, this is hardly news is it?

Welcome back to 18th Century thinking, where we the workers are held in the 'dark satanic mills' of the 21st Century!

Sloppy sloppy

Double? From how much? Does my risk increase from 1/100 to 2/100? Or 20/100 to 40/100?

Let's not talk relative increases, El Reg, please can we have the actual numbers and not sensationalist daily mirror attention grabbing? Accurate it may be, but clearly misleading. Give us the actual science, we can handle it.

Missing Data?

Yerst, there's a lot left out - Well, I hope it was left out and not even considered in the first place.

I would hazard a guess that over 50% of Reg readers sit easily in the 'on arse most of the day' part of the data but not all will be shoving down pizza and Coke and Red Bull and sweets and all those other seemingly minor things that will also contribute to heart disease --

-- nearly forgot, multiple-occupancy workplace also doesn't allow 40 a day --- those at work in an office will get exercise trying to keep warm hopping about outside the fire escape door while on thier 'comfort' break.

"'on arse most of the day'"

All the more reason to have sufficient exercise if you do have a sedentary job. Even some quite intelligent people think that exercise is merely an aid to loosing weight whereas exercise, reasonable weight and diet are all independent markers for longevity.